


Over My Head

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 R2, R3, Final - CIRCLECEST [34]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen, Goldenlake, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-11
Updated: 2011-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:44:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Duke was going to kill her...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com
> 
> Random.

Sandry bit down a scream. She was foolish to have believed she could handle this on her own. The mage she had been tracking must have had background knowledge of Sandry as well, for she’d had the sense to tie Sandry with metal wires and shackles. And, however embarrassing to the mage, she had entered the room without her clothing when she heard Sandry stirring out of potion-created slumbers.

            She knew she was underground, that much she could tell. Where, she wasn’t sure. It was dark; without the mage’s lantern she could see nothing.

            _Briar? Daja? Tris?_ she called into her mind, working to keep the outright panic from her voice.

            Tris was in her mind immediately. _Sandry, where are you?_

            _I don’t know. I’m tied; it’s metal. I’m underground._ Sandry bit he lip. _The maleficium case was too much for me. Come rescue me?_

            _We’ll find you_ , Briar said, voice fierce in her mind.

            Daja’s mind-touch was soothing. _Stay as calm as you can, Sandry; we’ll find you and slaughter the mage ourselves._

            She could feel them forming a map similar to the way she mapped on the loom. She breathed deeply. The Duke was going to kill her and Briar would join him, for ‘sticking her neb in other people’s scat’ again. Unpleasant image. Unpleasant situation. At least she knew she’d get out of it alive, with her three friends on her trail.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Distracted?”

Sandry shifted under the blood-mage’s gaze. It was terrible enough to be tied up in wire, shackled, nude and underground—but to have an evil and equally nude mage _staring_ at her added insult to injury.

            The door flew off its hinges and smashed against the opposing wall. Briar jumped in immediately following, knives drawn in his hands. Tris and Daja ran in behind him.

            “Dramatic,” Sandry’s captor drawled. “I was wondering if you lot would show up.”

            “I hope we didn’t leave you hanging,” Tris snapped; lightning jumped between her hands.

            Daja was staring intently at a vial in the mage’s hands. “You’re Alaba Hemlock, aren’t you?”

            “Guilty as charged.” She stood and sneered, depositing the small red vial she had been fingering into her mouth. “And you are Daja Kisubo, Briar Moss and Trisana Chandler.”

            “ _Tris_.” A spark flew from the woman’s hand; the lantern exploded.

            “You’re _naked_ ,” was all Briar could manage.

            Alaba grinned. “Distracted?”

            “Never. It’s on.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’ll just leave you here to decay.”

Alaba Hemlock, blood-mage and curser of entire families, glared at the three standing Circle mages.

            Briar called the thin layer of wood from the flooring alive, sending spikes into the mage’s feet and directing them to bend there; she screamed and jumped, cutting her feet open as she did so. She cried out further when she landed upon the spikes and fell back against the wall.

            Daja drew a line of wire from her living-metal palm and shaped it in her mind as she did so. When it was long enough, she threw it at the woman; it roped itself around her ankles. She hurried to the back of the room, calling Sandry’s shackles and wire-ties away. The freed metal scraped across the room and held Alaba as Sandry had previously been constrained.

            Alaba gasped aloud and attempted to clutch at her throat. Her face grew red.

            “I’ve taken your air,” Tris said, dark and dangerous. She looked insane in the light of the spilled lantern and her own blue-white lightning. Her hair was snaking free of its confinement; wet winds orbited around the Circle mages. “Give me the vile or Daja will call for it through your skin.”

            The blood-mage spat at Tris’ feet. Briar moved to attack but Tris stopped him. She stooped to pick up the little red vial the mage had previously tucked into her mouth. It glinted red and gold in Tris’ vision, and thus in the others’ as well.

            “It’s my blood.” Sandry stood with Daja’s assistance and reached her hand out for the vial. “It’s how she got me here.”

            Tris stared down at the tied-and-bleeding mage shackled meekly against the wall. Tris’ voice echoed with distant storms and the crackle of thunder. “We’ll just leave you here to decay.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think I’m done crime-fighting for a while.”

Sandry shivered as Briar reconstructed the door he had blown apart to gain entrance to Sandry’s underground prison. Daja stepped up to her and wrapped her prone, nude form in heat; Sandry embraced Daja and rested her cheek against Daja’s collarbone.

            “I didn’t know Tris could do that, steal someone’s air,” Sandry murmured. Her eyes were wide as she recalled the action and the thunderous tone of Tris’ verdict: ‘we’ll just leave you here to decay.’ The blood-mage Alaba Hemlock would not last long.

            “I didn’t know I could do it either,” Tris admitted as she held up the door for Briar using her hands from one side and directing wind on the other. When Briar had fixed it snug against the stone, the wind filtered out through the bottom and nestled into Tris’ hair. “I thought I had gone crazy.”

            “You looked it,” Briar affirmed. He stared intently at the door and drew his hands over it, spelling the wood to possess an aversion to sight. Hopefully it would keep attention away. He walked to Sandry and Daja, wrapping them both in his arms; Tris joined from the other side.

            “That was terrible,” Sandry whispered. “I think I’m done crime-fighting for a while.”

            “Good. The Duke is going to kill you for risking your life _again_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! C:


End file.
